


The Battle of the Trifles

by doomcanary



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M, drunken naked antics, military "humour", sting in the tail
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-20
Updated: 2014-03-20
Packaged: 2018-01-16 08:24:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1338673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doomcanary/pseuds/doomcanary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'Arthur walks out into the middle of the courtyard, stark naked, looks calmly up at the window and bellows “Merlin!”'</p><p>Spoilers for 1x05 'Lancelot'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Battle of the Trifles

When Merlin got landed with the job of being Arthur's manservant, he thought the prince was an arrogant prat. When Arthur saved his life, he began to think the prince might be a bit more complicated than he looked. He started to wonder if maybe being a prince came with responsibilities he didn't understand, and whether having Uther for a dad might be something that affected the way you turned out. Arthur was the crown prince; Merlin had a dawning suspicion that that might actually be quite a big job. He'd found himself occasionally thinking of Arthur as someone pretty important and serious, in fact. Phrases like “heir to the throne”, he thought, might actually be cliches for a reason.

None of which explains this: why the heir of Albion is currently sitting on the floor in his chambers, half in and half out of one of Morgana's dresses, playing some sort of card game with Bedevere, Kay and several of the visiting knights from Mercia. He's completely off his face as well of course, but that hardly needs explaining – that's just Arthur.

“Two pair!” crows Arthur, throwing down his cards. “Morgana to forfeit, I believe.”

“I can't fit into your britches,” says Morgana. “I've got an arse.”

“Doesn't mean you can't try,” says Arthur, taking a generous swallow of wine.

Morgana rolls her eyes, and grabs Arthur's trousers from the pile in the middle of the circle. There's a lot of laughter and ribald shouting as she gets them half way on and then they stick.

“Failure to forfeit,” says Arthur ominously. “Oh-oh-oh, I feel a dare coming on.”

“I'm not breaking into Uther's chambers again,” says Morgana.

“Oh, far from it,” says Arthur. “Once down to the gatehouse and back, I think.”

“In December?”

“Keep your speed up, you'll be warm as toast.”

“No,” says Morgana. “Not unless you lot are coming too.”

“What do we think, gentlemen?” says Arthur to the assembled knights. “Should we escort the lady?”

“I'm up for it,” says Kay. “Down 'em and run, boys!”

Everyone in the room, Morgana included, grabs their drink and downs it in one – then they're all piling out of the door, and for some reason tearing their shirts off as they go. Merlin, mystified, watches them disappear down the corridor; Bedevere's swinging his shirt round his head, and Arthur's holding the velvet dress up with one hand, whooping as he runs. He goes back inside, picks up the remaining clothes from the heap in the middle of the floor, and starts folding them, trying to remember whose is which. He's not too clear on the rules of the card game; when it started out it seemed to be that you took something off when you lost, but half way through Arthur had sent him out for more wine, and when he got back it seemed to have changed to putting on something that belonged to somebody else, and having to do something stupid if it didn't fit. Kay did look rather sweet in nothing but breeches and Morgana's garnet necklace, though.

He hears the unistakable sound of Arthur drunk in the courtyard below, and goes to the window. They're all down there, and they're stripping their clothes off. As he watches, every last one of them takes off everything they have on – and then they race off across the great courtyard towards the gatehouse, two courts away. Pale backsides flash in the moonlight like bizarre, inebriated fruit. As Merlin watches, a figure sneaks out of the doorway Arthur must have come from, picks up the clothes, and starts throwing them onto the stable block roof. Merlin's not quite certain, but he thinks it's Galahad.

A few minutes later, the white figures come racing back, stumbling into the wall at the end of the yard; only then do they look around, and notice the lack of their clothes.

“They've gone!” says Bedevere. His voice comes quite clearly up to where Merlin stands.

“Bloody hell,” says Arthur. “That was quick.”

“No they haven't,” says Morgana. “They're up there.”

“Fuck,” says Kay, and laughs. “Is there a ladder around?”

“Never mind that,” says Arthur. He walks out into the middle of the courtyard, stark naked, looks calmly up at the window and bellows “Merlin!”

Merlin opens the window and leans out.

“Is there a problem, sire?” he asks.

“Yes, you imbecile,” says Arthur. “I'm naked.”

Merlin can't resist it. “I'll have your belt buckle flogged for dereliction of duty, my lord,” he says.

“Merlin,” says Arthur, exasperatedly. “Bring the rest of our clothes down here.”

Merlin almost asks him why the hell he can't come up himself, then rolls his eyes, and shuts the window. He picks up the neat pile of clothes, and takes the short cut through the servants' door.

“Sir Kay; Sir Bedevere,” he says, handing out shirts. “This one is yours, sire, unless you'd prefer Morgana's overdress?”

Arthur manages to look remarkably regal, considering he's bollock naked in the middle of the courtyard at night.

“Either will do,” he says. “Wouldn't want to spoil the spirit of the occasion.”

Merlin gives up, and hands him the dress. He puts it on quite happily, and leads the party back inside.

“Oh and Merlin,” he says. “Find a ladder, and get the rest of our things.”

Merlin glares after them, shaking his head. Then he glances around the courtyard; Arthur's is the only window still lit. He points an accusing finger at the clothes on the stable roof, and mutters a few words; they come to a kind of flapping, billowing life, and climb down by themselves. Shirts and breeches lollop and cartwheel across the courtyard, and queue up alongside Morgana's velvet gown to fold themselves neatly at his feet. He picks them up, and goes back inside.

***

The next night, there's a colossal food fight after the banquet; it starts the instant the last of the more elderly members of the court disappear through the hall door behind Uther, and within minutes skirmishes have spread to the minstrels' gallery and the corridor. A hail of bread rolls and fruit flies down on the unfortunate defenders of the main table, who volley back with well-aimed profiteroles. Merlin dodges behind a tapestry into an alcove, and finds himself standing next to Gwen.

“What on earth are they doing?” he says.

“I have no idea at all,” Gwen says. “They're like this every year.”

They watch as Arthur leads a dramatic charge and retakes the corridor; Frederic, the ringleader of the Mercian knights, takes a gateau to the chest and goes down in a shower of whipped cream.

“Nasty,” says Merlin.

“Look out!” says Gwen, pulling him back behind the thick tapestry as Mercia's return salvo splatters against the wall over their heads. Merlin thinks it was the trifle; there's custard dripping down the stones.

Arthur's offensive breaks through to the minstrels' gallery; he's just too late to avoid a spectacular double casualty as Morgana and a Mercian knight upend the whole tureen of pea soup over the heads of Galahad and Kay below.

“For Camelot!” he shouts, and rams a handful of apple crumble down the back of Morgana's dress. She shrieks and retaliates with a lemon meringue that just misses Arthur's head; the Mercian knight leaps to her rescue, and the next moment all three of them slip and go down, gobbets of something white flying up into the air.

“Camelot falls!” yells Frederic triumphantly. “Do you yield, sir kni-” He's cut off with a sound somewhere between _slop_ and _mmph!_ as Arthur reappears over the balcony and gets him right in the face with a handful of whatever it was he fell in. It must have been the rest of the trifle. Absently, Merlin drags a finger through the custard that's still oozing down the wall beside him, and licks it; it's very good.

“Yield? Never!” cries Arthur. “To the cheese board, men!”

“How long does this usually go on?” says Merlin, as Bedevere and a Mercian knight both catch sight of a gigantic wheel of cheddar cheese, and fling themselves upon it, fighting for possession. They slip and stumble, wrestling over the cheese in a slimy puddle of pea soup, jelly and cream.

“Until they run out of mess to make,” says Gwen.

Arthur is hanging over the balcony, exhorting Bedevere to glory and chucking grapes when he thinks it will help; Morgana drags a crumble-covered scarf from round her neck, and flings it at the Mercian knight as a favour. It hits him with a soggy slap, and sticks to his shirt. Merlin's sure that's not quite how it's supposed to go.

“Now could be a good time to run for it,” Gwen suggests cautiously.

“Too right,” says Merlin. He and Gwen sneak carefully out from behind the tapestry, ignored as the knights cheer on the cheese warriors, and make good their escape.

***

Arthur staggers back to his chambers nearly an hour later. He's covered in an unnameable, primordial slime, presumably composed of what used to be Camelot's finest fare, and he's grinning all over his face.

“Victory!” he declares, throwing open his arms expansively and sending bits of trifle sponge flying left and right. “A hard fight, but a worthy one.” He throws himself into a chair, landing with a squelch. Merlin winces.

“I drew you a bath, sire,” he says.

“What? Wash off the blood of glory? I hardly think so,” says Arthur. “Where's that wine?”

Merlin shakes his head, and pours Arthur a goblet of mead.

“Wonderful,” says Arthur gratefully, and flops back into the chair, shoulders sliding slightly as he hits it. It's going to take Merlin hours to scrub all that off the wood again, once it's had a chance to dry on and stick.

He potters about tidying the place up as Arthur drinks, smiling to himself and gazing into the fire. Gradually, his expression sobers; and after a while, he drains the goblet and stands up.

“Perhaps I will have that bath,” he says. “A crown of custard is hardly becoming to a future king, after all.”

He sheds his doublet, which hits the floor with a dejected little flopping sound. Merlin almost feels sorry for it; but not quite as much as he wants to throw it out of the window into the moat, and fish it out tomorrow morning. He settles for putting it in a bucket of water. Arthur's left a trail of gunge-covered clothes leading to the screen in the corner; Merlin follows him, picking up the sorry garments and dumping them on top of the doublet. Even his shirt's stained and soggy round the neck.

Merlin glances up as he drops the shirt into the pail, and pauses. Arthur's leaning back in the bath, hair slick with water, his eyes closed, and an expression of such utter exhaustion on his face it stops Merlin's breath.

His eyes skate over Arthur's chest, pink with the warmth of the water (which Merlin had enchanted to stay hot). The flush on his skin makes his scars stand out more clearly; pale lines, and irregular patches of puckered skin. There's the one he got sparring with Bedevere when he first arrived, and didn't credit the man with as much skill as he has; there's his fall from a horse in a forest chase, when he hit a rock so hard his armour crumpled, and drove his chainmail right through his shirt and into his skin. There's the one he got in the last skirmish of the Mercian war, a year and a half ago.

And there, between his ribs on the left side; there's the gaping wound Merlin saw himself, the one the Gryphon gave him. Merlin had been right there with Gaius as the old physician stitched it closed, his hands perfectly steady even as Merlin's shook around the basin he held. Not even the joy and amazement of his own magical victory had been able to cushion that blow. The sight of Arthur ripped apart, the incomprehensible fact of that ugly wound intruding onto the same form that carried Arthur's sleeping face, had cut right down to Merlin's bones. And Merlin suddenly realises that every other scar, every mark and pucker, tells a story just as bloody and just as hard as that one; Arthur's body is a history of battles, and a map of pain.

Merlin looks down at the bucket of soupy water in his hand. There's something swimming under the surface of his mind, like the pale form of the shirt in the bucket, half-seen. He thinks he might know why the knights of Camelot and Mercia throw food at each other, and wrestle over cheese, and strip themselves naked and run bellowing through the night. Because that; that's living, raw and to the full. But it's a rawness that comes without blood, and without wounds, and without deaths to tally up and forgive yourself for.

When you're the prince of Albion, the chance to live is rare.

***

Merlin silently wipes the mess off Arthur's chair, cleans the sticky marks from the floor, and lays out fresh clothes for the morning. Then he goes to Arthur, wakes him from a half-doze in the tub, and gently helps him get the last of the Battle of the Trifle out of his hair. Arthur looks at him searchingly, taking in the unusual seriousness of his face; Merlin leaves him in his bedchamber, damp and redeemed, watching him go with thoughtful eyes.

The next night, when he hears shrieks and splashes in the courtyard below Morgana's chambers and looks out to see pale naked forms leaping into the moat, he smiles to himself; his eyes flash, and the knights' discarded clothes get up, and skitter away to hide themselves in any corner they can find.

When you're the prince of Albion, the chance to live is rare; the chance to live without getting hurt, without watching your friends die or knowing that you have to send some unknown other to their death, is more precious still. Merlin's not going to judge Arthur for taking it.

**Author's Note:**

> I got talking to [](http://ionaonie.livejournal.com/profile)[**ionaonie**](http://ionaonie.livejournal.com/) on her lovely fic [here](http://ionaonie.livejournal.com/251796.html), and I'd been watching Bradley James's [back catalogue on YouTube](http://uk.youtube.com/user/bradleyjnet), in which he's in an episode of Lewis; and thus the idea of Arthur-the-Cambridge-boatie swam into my head. Yes, I have an unbearably posh education, yes, that means I went to university with some really, really archetypal Hooray Henries. This, fangirls of the world, is the life I am pissing away, mucking around on Livejournal writing fic. I begin to see why the Other Half gets so cross with me for it. And yes, the Hooray Henries wound me up no end. Until, that is, I spent two years in a train wreck of a relationship with one of them, and learnt why they're like that. Culture's a horrible thing sometimes, and public schools have a lot to answer for; they're still turning out people who are moulded into the kind of soldiers World War II wanted. It's not easy to be like that in a world that doesn't fit you any more.
> 
> So this is my little Merlin-verse meditation on the nature of the British middle classes. Hope you enjoy.


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